In the oil and gas industry, pipelines are essential components of the energy supply chain. This infrastructure will still need to perform for many more decades, as the world demand for oil and gas continues to increase. Oil and gas pipeline operations are considered one of the highest risk activities in the industry. Any failure of a pipeline system will cause a significant impact to the environment and economy. However, many oil and gas pipelines are nearing the end of their design life but have many more years of production left. Despite the best designed and well maintained pipelines, the unavoidable defects such as metal loss due to corrosion, erosion, cracks and others mean structural integrity can be compromised. Operators need to be aware of the effects of these defects on their pipelines, and more importantly to be able to assess and monitor structural integrity. Pipeline monitoring is frequently restricted to visual inspection and mass or flow measurements leading to very limited capabilities to detect and locate pipeline failures such as leakages. As a result, pipeline failures are usually noticed only when the output flow is affected or when they have severe effects on the surrounding environment leading to potentially costly situations. The integrity assessment of oil and gas pipelines is well developed. Formerly, inspection and maintenance have been carried out at predefined intervals in order to ensure structural integrity. Today with the increasing availability of advanced sensor methods, pipeline operators have available very powerful and cost-effective tools. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) can be used for rapid condition screening and aims to provide, in near real time, reliable information regarding the integrity of the structure. This paper reviews the development of SHM procedures in particular, introducing optical fiber sensors (FBG) and electrical sensors (electrical gauges) embedded between composite wrapping and parent material (i.e. steel pipelines) that contain identified defects. A methodology for structural integrity and pipeline maintenance and repair is presented in this paper.
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